Two more arrests in jewelry store armed robberies | News

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New information from a Federal affidavit says three of the suspects trained Abby Kemp, 24, of Smyrna at a local Atlanta business owned by the two suspects who were just arrested.

Michael Bernard Gilmore, 46 and his brother Larry Bernard Gilmore, 43, of Atlanta were arrested this morning after the FBI raided a business they own. But investigators believe the business, Buckhead Window Tinting, on Cheshire Bridge Road, was being used to train for the robberies.

Neighboring businesses told 11 Alive’s Kevin Rowson they never saw any cars being worked on at the business.

Kemp became notorious because she was usually the only robber seen on surveillance cameras inside the jewelry stores. She and Lewis Jones, 35, were arrested in January and the two were charged in connection with at least six robberies.

According to a Federal arrest warrant affidavit "Michael (Gilmore), Larry (Gilmore) and (Lewis) Jones began training (Abby) Kemp to rob the jewelry stores on her own while Jones, Michael and Larry acted as her lookouts outside the stores."

The FBI said that training took place at the window tinting business. "Michael, Larry, and Jones reviewed layouts of the target jewelry stores with Kemp; instructed her on the proper way to manipulate a handgun, how to secure the employees with zip ties, and what merchandise to steal from the store.”

The FBI said all the jewelry store robberies had the same modus operandi. “During all of the robberies except (one) Kemp would enter an Outlet Mall jewelry store at approximately the same time of day, brandish a firearm, order the employees to the back of the store, and force them to lay face down while she zip tied their hands behind their backs,” according to the affidavit.

Jones has been on the FBI and local Atlanta law enforcement radar since July of 2014 and he may be tied to a violent three-man robbing crew that wreaked havoc that summer.

Surveillance video released by the FBI from a robbery at a Buckhead Benihana restaurant showed how violent the robbing crew was. Suspects roughed up employees while threatening their lives.

The FBI said the three robbers were suspects in three bank robberies, several pedestrian robberies, and robberies at a bakery and a car wash on Cheshire Bridge Road, two doors from the window tinting business.

The Gilmore brothers were arraigned in Federal court on Friday. All four suspects in the jewelry store robberies are facing up to 20-years in prison.